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Bordeaux 2020 – the sweet-wine struggle

Ch Suduiraut vines 4 Nov 2021

Bordeaux's Bill Blatch, provider of many a comprehensive Bordeaux vintage report in the past, concentrates here on his real love, Sauternes and Barsac, and also reports on the devastating 2021 frost damage there. Ch Suduiraut, one of the stars of the vintage, and its vineyards are pictured above in autumn 2020.

A very warm 2019/20 winter (100-year temperature record and three times fewer frosts than average) plus major rainfall (twice the average in November, December and March) and a succession of storms in the first two months of 2020 (11 named ones in February) all combined to provoke a start...